The Effectiveness of Global and Domain-Specific ECE Curricular and Professional Development Enhancements: Findings from Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background/Context: There is a convergence of evidence that the quality of children's early care and education (ECE) experiences is critical for promoting children's development (Gormley, Phillips, & Gayer, 2008). Curriculum combined with professional development is thought to be the "strongest hope" for promoting quality (Weiland & Yoshikawa, 2021). Yet, open questions remain about the effectiveness of such targeted investments to ensure that children, particularly low-income children, receive and benefit from high-quality child care and early education programming on a large scale. Purpose: This paper presents impact findings from The Expanding Children's Early Learning (ExCEL) Quality Study: Improving Preschool and Early Care and Education Instruction through Curricula, Coaching, and Training. This study aims to build evidence about the effectiveness of two theoretically distinct curricular and professional development intervention approaches by employing a rigorous experimental study design. In doing so, it aims to inform the field about which particular teacher practices may be most important to target to maximize improvements for child outcomes in ECE programming. This paper examines the following research questions: (1) What is the impact of the two intervention approaches on teacher-reported classroom practices?; and (2) What is the impact of the two intervention approaches on parent reports of children's behaviors and pre-academic skills? Setting: The study took place in 53 Head Start and community-based ECE settings in 4 localities across the U.S. in the 2019-2020 school year. Participating classrooms include 4-year-old classrooms and mixed-aged classrooms that serve 3- and 4-year-olds. Participants: The study sample consists of 145 classrooms. 1,955 parents provided consent for their children to participate in the study. The sample was racially and ethnically diverse -- 42% of children were Hispanic and 52% of children were Black. Twenty-three percent of parents had an Associate's degree or higher. Ninety-two percent of parents reported receiving assistance paying for their child's tuition at the center (via Head Start, childcare subsidy, public pre-K or other help). Intervention: The intervention approaches are: (1) A whole-child, global approach that uses Creative Curriculum (6th edition); and (2) an integrated, domain-specific approach with a specific scope and sequence that uses Connect4Learning. Teachers assigned to either of the intervention approaches received training in the summer prior to and throughout the program year. They also received ongoing coaching every other week during the program year consisting of a classroom observation and a coach-teacher meeting. Due to the pandemic, in-person professional development supports and most in-person instruction ended in March of the program year. Research Design: ExCEL Quality is a 3-group, cluster randomized controlled study where ECE centers were randomly assigned to one of two intervention approaches or to a preschool-as-usual control condition. Data Collection and Analysis: All data were collected via online surveys, fielded to parents and teachers in the summer of 2020. Teachers reported on the number of days per week that their classrooms utilized various activity settings and focused on different content areas. Parents reported on the Behavior Problem Index (Peterson & Zill, 1986), the social competence subscale of the Positive Behavior Scale (Quint, Bos, & Polit, 1997), and the early learnings skills items from the National Outcome Measure of Healthy and Ready to Learn (Paschall, Moore, Pina & Anderson, 2020). Data were analyzed using mixed models with random intercepts for center and, for child outcomes, classroom. Analyses for teacher practices outcomes controlled for teacher education, teacher experience, and classroom composition, and analyses for child outcomes controlled for the child's baseline vocabulary score (PLS-5; Zimmerman, Steiner & Pond, 2011) and child and family background characteristics. Findings/Results: See Tables 1 and 2 for results for teacher-reported classroom practices and parent-reported child outcomes, respectively. Activity Settings: Teachers reported implementing statistically significantly more small group activities in the both the whole-child, global approach group (ES=0.41, p < 0.05) and, at a trend level, the integrated, domain-specific approach group (ES=0.46, p < 0.10) than teachers in the control group. Teachers in the integrated, domain-specific approach group also reported implementing more large group activities than teachers in the control group at a trend level (ES = 0.46, p < 0.10). There are several additional moderately-sized effects (ES > 0.25) that are not statistically significant. Teachers in the integrated, domain-specific approach group reported implementing more read alouds and individual activities, and fewer choice time/centers activities, than teachers in the control group (ES's 0.27-0.55, ns). In addition, teachers in the whole-child, global approach group reported implementing more read alouds and individual activities than teachers in the control group (ES's 0.27- 0.44, ns). Content areas: There were no statistically significant differences in teachers' reports of content areas. However, there are several moderately-sized effects that are not statistically significant. Teachers in the integrated, domain-specific approach group reported implementing more language and literacy and math activities than teachers in the control group (ES's 0.25-0.46, ns). Teachers in the whole-child, global approach group reported implementing less dance, and more social studies and science, than teachers in the control group (ES's 0.26-1.01, ns). Children's behaviors: There were no statistically significant differences between the research groups on children's behaviors. All effect sizes were small in magnitude (ES's 0.01-0.06). Children's skills: Parents whose children attended centers in the integrated, domain-specific approach group reported higher child skill scores (counting, letter naming, etc.) compared to parents whose children attended centers in the control group (ES = 0.18, p < 0.05). There was no difference between child skill scores between the whole-child, global approach group and the control group (ES = 0.02, ns). Conclusions: The results of this study show promising patterns, suggesting that the two interventions approaches may differentially change the activity settings and content areas taught in classrooms. There is also some indication that the integrated, domain-specific approach may be more effective for improving children's constrained early learning skills, as reported by parents. Unfortunately, the methods used to assess outcomes in this study were limited due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, this study provides support for the benefits of structured curricula combined with professional development on teacher practices and child skills.